Pentagon: (Iraq and Afghanistan) Insurgents Intercepted Drone Spy Videos

[tekisui]

Source: LA Times

WASHINGTON — Insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan have hacked into live video feeds from Predator drones, a key weapon in a Pentagon spy system that serves as the military’s eyes in the sky for surveillance and intelligence collection.

Though militants could see the video, there is no evidence they were able to jam the electronic signals from the unmanned aerial craft or take control of the vehicles, a senior defense official said Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence issues.

Obtaining the video feeds can provide insurgents with critical information about what the military may be targeting, including buildings, roads and other facilities.

Shiite fighters in Iraq used off-the-shelf software programs such as SkyGrabber -- available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet -- to regularly capture drone video feeds, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The interception, first done there at least a year ago, was possible because the remotely flown planes had unprotected communications links.

Within the last several months, the military has found evidence of at least one instance where insurgents in Afghanistan also monitored U.S. drone video, a second defense official said. He had no details on how many times it was done in Afghanistan or by which group.

more: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dcnow/2009/12/pentagon-insurgents-intercepted-drone-spy-videos.html

[StarfarerBill]

1. This reminds me of something I saw on the news many years ago:

The Navy discovered that the radars on their F-14 fighters could be picked up by commercial radar detectors from some distance away...something the report emphasized they should not be able to do.

Why this has stuck with me all this time is that, even as a conservative at that point, I was angered that all that money had been spent on those planes and they were still easily found by common radar detectors. Now, of course, my anger at military waste goes far beyond just the dollars-spent issue.